Pella artist creates paintings with a photographic style

by Tom Hardesty
Oskaloosa Herald (Iowa)
16 March 1999, p. 1

An exhibit of oil paintings at the Mills Gallery on the campus of Central
College in Pella is sure to fool the eyes of some viewers. The photographic quality
of these paintings may be misleading, but they are certainly thought provoking.

Art Zoller Wagner, the artist, has been doing figure painting and nudes for
years, as he investigates what he can learn from painting and what painting can
teach him.

Through ink drawings and paintings, he explores what he calls, "the intersection
of the sacred and the psychological."

Originally from Baltimore, Wagner, 46, comes from a family in which painting
was quite ordinary.

"My grandfather, Emil Fernandez, was a house painter and an interior decorator
in Clarksburg, West Virginia," Wagner said. "He didn't just paint walls, he painted
murals for churches and bars and did fancy ceiling paintings in homes, too. Having
someone like that in my family always made me think it was possible to be a painter."

His father was an engineer. His mother, a school teacher.

"But she painted some," he said, "and was very much involved in crafts."

The artist's wife, JoAnne Zoller Wagner, is an assistant professor at Central
College, where she teaches English as a Second Language, ESL teaching methods,
and linguistics.

Pursuing his education and his craft has taken the artist to Washington, D.C.,
Cedar Falls, Chicago, Ill., Morgantown, W.V., and Madrid, Spain.

"I paint to understand," Wagner said, "to cross the threshold between the
known and as yet unknown. This series of paintings records a process of discovery."

Anyone who takes a moment from their busy life to contemplate these beguiling
paintings and reflect for a moment in the quiet surroundings of the Mills Gallery
may discover that what the artist has said is true--there is something to be learned
from looking at a painting.

Mermaid Lesson II
Art Zoller Wagner
One of the monochromatic paintings in the exhibition

Several of the paintings are done as self-portraits. Two paintings show the
artist curled up on his side in a fetal position in what appears to be an old
bathtub. Something to think about. Not your usual bathing scene.

"Our bodies are very real," Wagner said. "Although the human figure is highly
idealized in the media, our own average bodies are earthy, often painfully real.
They fascinate us, and yet they also frighten us."

Wagner earned his MFA in visual arts from Vermont College of Norwich University
in Montpelier, Vt., and his bachelor's degree from the University of Northern
Iowa in Cedar Falls. His training in art is broad and impressive. He has exhibited
widely and has followed a career as a fine arts instructor and artist-in-residence.